"If he had but waited, or if I had not been so hesitating! Now I must go on, and he must not know. A month later and I might have received them all in my sweet Surrey home, have met him with full hands, and there would have been no need of explanation, while now!" She struck her hands together, and set her lips in firm lines. "I must see him once, and then we need not meet until all is arranged. If I only knew where to send a note."
She had been absent since luncheon, and upon her arrival at home she found this brief note awaiting her:
"Mrs. Jamieson.
"Dear Madam,—Being in London for a short time only, and with little leisure, I take the liberty of asking if I may call upon you in the morning, at the unfashionable hour of eleven o'clock?
"Yours respectfully,
"Ferriss Grant."
It was late when she reached Bloomsbury, and she had little time to dress for dinner and the evening, for she was going out again, but she replied to this note, bidding him come, and assuring him of his welcome at any hour. Then, reluctantly, and with a look of distaste, amounting almost to repugnance upon her face, she began to dress for the evening.
When Ferrars reached his rooms, after leaving the café, his lips were set, and his eyes gleamed dangerously, for a little time he paced the floor, and then, impelled by some thought, he looked to see if any letters had arrived during his absence. Yes, there they were, half a dozen of them. He glanced at their superscriptions, and then opened a little perfumed and black-bordered envelope. It was Mrs. Jamieson's reply to his note of the afternoon, and he read it and put it down slowly.
"I shall be prompt," he said to himself, "to keep that appointment, and I wonder whether its outcome will make me more or less her friend. If it will alter or modify my plans; and if, having met this once I shall have the courage, the hardihood to meet her again, and to say what I must say if we meet." He put down the little note and took up the one next in interest.
The handwriting was that of Ruth Glidden, and the stationery that of a fashionable Piccadilly dressmaker.
"Dear Mr. F."—so ran the note—
"I am aware that you did not wish us, any of us, to be seen of men in London until certain things were accomplished, and I take upon myself all the blame of the little journey we, Mrs. Myers, Hilda, and myself, took this afternoon. We felt quite safe in visiting a few shops 'for ladies only,' but at the third we met Mrs. Jamieson. This may, or may not, be of moment to you. At all events, I have eased my conscience, and Hilda's, by letting you know. Nothing of any moment was said on either side, and no questions were asked.
"Yours penitently,
"Ruth G."
Over this womanlike note Ferrars wrinkled his brows, and finally smiled.
"I had not meant that they should meet until—but pshaw! What does it matter? Everything seems urging me on and shaping my course. So be it! It is time for the last stroke, and to-morrow, before this hour, I shall be a free man, or a failure."